Volcano

Call it a boondoggle if you want. I knew that I needed to get out of the compound for the day to do some.. reconnaissance. We had heard reports that our waste recycler was dumping the non-recyclable part of his waste shipments in various ditches along the paved road to Al Mukullah. I figured I better go investigate before things got out of hand. So armed with my trusty armed guard and a driver, I set off in search of windmills.

OK, it was a bit of a BD.

We didn't find any Yemgas garbage dumps, and I'm pretty sure that my companions still have no idea what we were doing out there. They eventually came to understand that we were looking for something, but even if I knew the Arabic words for "large amount of garbage from the construction project" I don't think they would have understood the purpose of our quest. Garbage goes on the ground in this part of the world. Where else would it go? Spending time and resources trying to track down some discarded trash so that it could be picked up and hauled off somewhere else is more than foreign, it's like moving a pawn sideways. I am reminded of the story about an Arab man who visited California. He had fallen in love with a movie star, I think it was Farrah Faucett or someone like that. Anyway, he saw her one day walking on the beach with her dog. He was awestruck: here was this larger-than-life image of a famous, rich, radiantly beautiful woman. But what was it in the plastic bag she was carrying that appeared to be, yes, he was quite certain of it now, it... was... dog poop?? Knights pawn to Bishops pawn.

Anyway, Abdul, Ahmed and I enjoyed the break in the routine, and we got to do some exploring, which was pretty cool. Among the nifty places we found was a volcanic caldera, which was filled with water. I took some photos, but I couldn't capture the unnatural greenish tint of the water. I later learned that the color was from volcanic sulfuric acid.

Random photos

The winter weather in south coastal Yemen is just about ideal: cool nights and very pleasant daytime temperatures. Only one problem: occasional windstorms in the "empty quarter" up north stir up the desert dust which diffuses its way to us (not blown to us, it has been windless here in Balhaf). The empty quarter is a huge, empty desert occupying about 1/4 of the Saudi peninsula, where the wind has been blowing the sand around for so long that the particle size is like tobacco smoke. It acts like ink if you touch it. And it doesn't settle very fast once it becomes airborne, which is why it eventually diffuses here even in the absence of wind.) We have been shrouded in a haze of this dust for a couple of days (Feb 3, 08). This photo is taken in the still of the morning on an otherwise cloudless day. Dust is a way of life throughout large parts of the Middle East, and it goes a long way towards explaining the popularity of the scarf thing that people wrap around their heads. At the first hint of dust conditions, the Yemeni men cover their face with them like a surgical mask. They don't even think about it; it is a reflex. Of course, the women are perpetually prepared for a dust storm.

I spent one day doing an environmental baseline assessment of this beach to determine whether it can be safely used as a recreational outlet on Friday afternoons for 10,000 recreation-deprived workers. The beach is in the next cove east of the construction site. Nobody owns it, nobody goes there, it is a hundred miles from nowhere. My job was to evaluate the potential vulnerability of the coral and to determine whether there were any nesting turtles who may object to human encroachment. In the background is a volcanic island, one of hundreds along the coast. It is safe to guess that no human has ever been on it. Pretty inhospitable basalt boulders, why would anyone want to go there. Still you don't normally think that there are desolate places like this outside of the Antarctic.

Wild (ferrel?) camels are common sights while driving around the countryside. Nobody really owns them as far as I can tell. Apparently they are easily rounded up when someone needs a pack animal, then they are let loose again.

Photo of Balhaf Harbor. By the end of 2008 there will be a long pier completed which will allow deep draft ocean vessels to dock and load product.